


The Birth of Anteros

by fresne



Series: Olympos by Gaslight [1]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The Marriage of Aphrodite and Hephaestus (Greek Mythology)
Genre: Explicit Language, F/M, Greek Mythology so bad things happen but offscreen, Heterosexual Sex, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Yuletide 2019, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: Kronos was not patient. He was not kind.So came love into the world.So came the gods.|---Hephaestus just wanted some effing answers.
Relationships: Aphrodite/Hephaestus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Aphrodite/Others
Series: Olympos by Gaslight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838317
Comments: 20
Kudos: 67
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Birth of Anteros

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_alchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/gifts).



> Looking at your letter I've avoided descriptions of certain events from the early birth of the gods. Hoping allusions are ok. 
> 
> Also, this kind of got away from me.

Ouranos the sky and Gaia the earth had many sons and daughters. A natural result given that they lay together often where the sky rubbed against the earth. Where the earth pushed up into the sky.

These sons and daughters were the titans. But Ouranos didn't like how loud his first born sons, the storm titans, were. He locked them away underneath Gaia's body in the land of Tartarus. The name for that place before the He Takes all Away took up residence. But that was later. An age or so.

These trapped sons beat at the stone and soil. They begged their mother for help. The Cyclops, storm titans. The Hecatoncheires, the hundred armed titans. They hurt her, but still she loved. She knew that they were not trying to harm her. She understood they were trapped in the dark. She understood that they were afraid. 

She asked her younger sons for help. She gave Kronos an adamantine sickle so he could cut open a place for his older brothers to come out. Even though it would hurt her for him to do so. 

But that's not what he did with that sickle.

No.

She did not see him clearly.

She did not see his pride. 

She did not see his overarching ambition. 

She saw him with a mother's eyes.

He waited for his father to lower himself to lie with his wife. Kronos was quick with that stone sickle. Swift to remove the part that Ouranos had used to make all those sons and daughters. Quick to kill him too.

Kronos was very careful to throw his father's phallus into the sea. He was afraid of what might come from what he'd done. 

From the blood that fell on the earth, for there was no way to avoid a terrible flood, came the last children of Ouranos. The Gigantes, snake legged giants with a lust for violence. The Meliai, ash nymphs that fed the first people manna and honey. But that was later. A later age.

Now the blood from that primal wound fell into Okeanos the sea. Violent foam formed on the thrashing surface of the deep dark sea. Angry waves heaved up towards the sky. Not wine dark. Not wily. Raging black. Wrathful green. Sorrowing grey. 

Finally after half an age quieting to a quiet blue with flashes of gold.

Kronos was a child. Proud. Ambitious. Ruthless. Quite without the quality of ruth. He did not understand certain things. 

In all fairness, most of the titans did not.

All he knew was that the titans were born of the act when Gaia joyfully grappled with her husband. When he still had that part to please her with. While he lived. Before her son remade Gaia a widow beneath a dead sky with bones aplenty on which to hang stars. 

All Kronos knew was that Okeanos was no mother earth. All he knew was that Okeanos was no father sky. He did not think of all the places the patient sea pounded on rocks. He was uninterested in all the ways the relentless water lapped upon the soil. As far as he was concerned nothing grew there. Never mind bracken marshes. They were beneath him. 

He did not think about all the places curling waves caressed the arc of the sky. How they might rage as mighty monuments of water one day, and lay sparkling and reflective the next. As far as he was concerned nothing grew there. Never mind drifting clouds. He wasn't the sort to mind their movements.

Now what came of that blood and water was not a titan. Nor a bracken marsh. Nor a cloud. 

What came of that salt and flesh was none of these. Certainly not a god. 

A cockle shell drifted up from the depths in the delicate foaming. Slowly opening to reveal what precious shape lay within. The fair Aphrodite. She did not come into this world naked as most do. Not small and fragile. She emerged fully grown. 

Okeanos gave her gifts from the moment she was born. A white dove feather. A mirror. A chiton of sea silk. A beautifully woven cestas girdle of a complicated pattern imbued with love and beauty that would make any who wore it almost as desirable as she, but loosely belted due to Okeanos' final gift. 

Love came into this world fertile with child. There with the lapping waves rocking the cockle shell, she gave birth. So love understood from the moment of her birth the painful price of passion. The joy that it could bring.

Her first born was Eros the Erotes of passionate love. Then came Himeros the Erotes of desire. Next came Pothos the Erotes of longing. No sooner than they were born, but her children were trying out their doves' wings. Playful and happy in the air. Innocent. Blind. 

For make no mistake, the Erotes are all born blind. They fly not by seeing with eyes, but by feeling the currents of the sky. Breathing the odeurs of the air. Hearing the harmony of hearts.

This was how love and desire were born into the world from the sea that loved not temperately. Not kindly. But fully.

As Aphrodite reclined in the shell, resting from her labors, the Erotes gently tugged the cockle shell over the lapping waves to the shore.

Kronos, on the advice of Metis, the titan of wisdom, had given the Gigantes a mountain land to be gone from his sight. Given the Meliai away as honey brides. Now he went to see the last born of Ouranos. 

On his niece's advice, he acted as if Aphrodite and her children were a joke. "Love and desire. This is all my father could manage with his last...." he stretched his lips into a smile, "cast." 

"Fertility too," said Aphrodite with a wink at the Erotes, who giggled and darted about in the air. She playfully splashed water with her right foot at Eros, who avoided the spray with a laugh. It should be noted her sons each had their own gifts. Not garments. They were quite naked. 

They each had bows of gold and came from the womb knowing how to pierce a heart with love.

Kronos remained standing. Towering over her. If not her naked fluttering children. He crossed his arms. He would not be intimidated by a woman and a trio of infants. "It is the fate of fathers to be overthrown by their sons."

Aphrodite smiled as beautiful as the wild sea on a stormy day. Her children's laughter uplifted the air. "Is that so?" She leaned back and with a languid hand flicked a shimmering spray of sea water at Pothos.

Metis said, "Leave them be. After all, who among us can say what would be born from the death of love and desire."

Prometheus could have said, but he and Kronos were not on good terms, and so Kronos abided by Metis' counsel.

So loving Aphrodite walked among the titans. Pothos' arrow filled strong-armed Rhea with desire for her brother, Kronos. Filled her with a deep and abiding love, and a longing for a child.

Eros had an arrow for Kronos, but missed. Pothos too. Only Himeros' shaft for desire struck true. 

This was not a plan. Love does not plan who to love. A slowly growing bracken fern that gently uncurls in the muck. A sudden squall of rain when but a moment before the sky was clear and bright. After all, the Erotes were blind.

Kronos didn't take the simple step of not coupling with Rhea, his sister-wife. 

No. 

That is not what he did. 

Each time Aphrodite consoled the great mother Rhea that it would be different. Held her as she wept. Rocked her as the sea rocks a boat. Loaned fertile Rhea her cestas-girdle to beguile Kronos into trying again. So the gods came into and out of the world. Until strong armed Rhea, sick with mother love, switched out a stone for her youngest. Hid him in a cave in the body of Gaia, his grandmother. 

Not so deep as Tartarus. Not nearly so deep as that. 

Zeus was free to run and play. To look out from his hiding place and see the corpse of the sky. 

On hearing of his deeds, Aphrodite came to see him and on seeing her, Zeus was overwhelmed with desire. She sent her children off to play while she enjoyed his desire. For all that he saw only that she was beautiful. 

Much later she returned to show him the fluttering child they'd had of their coupling, Hedylogus the Erotes of flattery and seduction. He made demands of her for her love. He said, "I am a god. I could be a king." After a long moment, he added, "For the good of our child."

She loved. It was who she was, so when he asked for her help, she said, "Kronos would never trust me to come near him. But I know someone he trusts completely." She said somewhat sadly, knowing her own nature, "In love, even wisdom is unwise."

Hedylogus went with Zeus to visit Metis, and with her help, the age of the gods began. 

As Kronos was overthrown, he laughed bitterly. He warned Zeus, "It is the fate of the son to overthrow the father." He pointed at Metis, "If you keep her near you, you will be overthrown in your turn."

Sky-father Zeus laughed. "I don't fear my children." This was when he and Prometheus were on good terms. Before Prometheus gave him a prophecy for a wedding gift.

Kronos laughed as the Lord of the Under Earth ungently took him away to the land beneath Gaia, and where that god took up his eternal watch over Kronos and the titans, who had sided with him against the gods.

<3 <3 <3

The way just Zeus told it, the gods drew lots for dominions. The way wily Zeus told it, Poseidon won the sea, and the Lord of Many won the under-earth, while great Zeus won rulership of the sky and dominion over all the gods. That is the way mighty Zeus told it.

No one asked Aphrodite. 

If someone had asked Aphrodite, she would have said, "All love is worthwhile. But not all that calls itself love is love." She would not have explained what she meant. So perhaps it was best that no one asked.

Lawful Zeus wooed his sister Hera. This was before she was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. But she rejected him. 

She told Aphrodite, "Please don't take this as a slight against you." The war with the titans was fresh in Hera's mind. "And it's not just because he's married to Metis."

"Of course not," said Aphrodite. She cupped a downy dove feather in her palm and with a puff of her golden cheeks, a purse of her scarlet lips, set it to floating. 

Aphrodite had not seen Metis in some time. She'd kissed Metis once - how could she not with Metis so lovely and wise - by a blue lagoon. Metis who had been seduced by descriptions of blue-eyed, storm haired Zeus living lonely in a cave, and never mind he'd already laid the seed for children in the bellies of the titans Eurynome, Leto, Mnemosyne, and Themis, and for that matter Aphrodite's. Never mind how he'd treated his mother Rhea when she'd warned him to stay away from Hera. 

As no son should treat his mother.

Aphrodite could regret loving Zeus. She could regret kissing Metis. If she was given to regrets. But she was certain love was always worthwhile. 

Aphrodite always believed that.

The last time Aphrodite had seen Metis, the titan of wisdom had told her, "Prometheus visited me last night," but would not say what the titan of forethought had said. Aphrodite had kissed her then too. Blooming as Metis had been with the glow of pregnancy, how could she resist?

That was then. 

Waves of water on the shore.

To avoid her brother, Hera went to live in a little star cottage in the clouds. She loved the clouds that wreathed Olympus. They were soft. Away from anyone. Touching the dome of the sky. She decorated her grandfather's bones with her silly little stars, as Zeus called them. 

But Zeus wanted Hera for his wife, so he caused a great storm to come up, and took the form of a cuckoo bird that chirped the most piteous cries.

Hera heard the frightened animal. She looked out her window down onto Olympus below and saw the poor little drowned creature. The wounded cuckoo bird. Kind-hearted Hera took pity. She went out into the terrible storm. It beat at her crown and whipped at her hair. This was before she always wore a bridal veil. This was before that.

She picked the bird up and held him to her soft breasts. She took him into her home. Her special space away from everyone. Where she did not have to be near anyone. She fed him with her own hand. She adopted him as a pet. Wily Zeus shivered as if he was cold. So that loving, sweet girl tucked him under the blankets of her own bed. 

There he assumed his true form and embarrassed her there. 

That was how she described it to Aphrodite later. 

Shivering. Stuttering. Shaking. 

Embarrassment. 

Hera tugged at her torn garments. She wore a series of cloud fine veils that covered bruises. She wouldn't meet Aphrodite's eyes. She said, "He loves me very much." She put a hand over her belly. "I'm pregnant." Her eyes filled with tears. "Z...zzz.zzz...zeus, he...he...he...he sa..sa.says he loves me." Hera looked at her hands knit tightly together. 

This was long before Athena was born to perfect the art of weaving that had been invented by Metis. 

"I… I think I've f...f...found my godhead." As Hera said the words, something shifted. Shrank. Warped. "Motherhood." Her lips firmed. "Marriage. He says we'll marry in our mother's garden and it will be… p...p...perfect. Because he loves me."

Aphrodite did not say that this had little to do with love. 

Instead she looked at the crown on Hera's head. The crown of stars for the queen of the heavens. She placed her hand on Hera's cold hand. "Your child will be loved."

Hera's eyes full of tears let fall the rain. "It's going to be perfect. I'll make a perfect wife. Zeus will be a perfect husband."

As Sky-Father Zeus, lawful Zeus, just Zeus told it, there were three hundred years of bliss. Unless he chose to tell it another way. Zeus was the god of storms and wind and weather. His eyes were the color of the corpse of the sky and was switched for a stone at birth.

|-- |-- |--

Like any careful smith, Haphaestus planned carefully to the last detail. 

He planned the gift that he would give to Hera. Being careful to ensure that Mother-Thetis and Mother-Euryonme understood that he considered them the mothers of his heart. The ones who had taken him in when he'd fallen into the sea as a boy. Broken in body. Shattered in mind and fucked in the head. Piece of metal shoved into a bucket of cold water too soon.

So many questions. Only questions. Too many questions. And then a volcano tripped.

He was also careful to make sure they had no clue about his plan to get some facts. None.

As it was Mother-Euryonme asked him three times if he was sure he wanted anything to do with Olympus. He knew that she'd been involved with Zeus once upon a time. Three kids. Charities. Cold showers from Sky-Father. The word dick may have come up. Once or twice or a thousand times.

So he had planned for the question.

"Yeah. It's just something I've got to do."

He didn't tell them what the golden throne he'd so carefully crafted for Hera would do.

He planned when he would give the gift to Hera. Just prior to the festival of Diasia when all of the Olympian gods would gather on Mount Olympus. 

Little went according to plan.

Very little.

That didn't happen at his forge.

He arrived many days before the festival. He presented the golden throne to Hera. It worked exactly as it should. Chains wrapping around her trapping her.

This was when things went off the finely crafted rails of his plan.

"That's the funniest thing I've ever seen," said Zeus slapping his thigh like it was the floor of a thigh slapping dance. "The lame god trapped to a chair trapping his nasty ass mother to a chair." 

That sound was the sound of the rails of his plan being destroyed.

"Hilarious, Father," said his brilliantly gorgeous dick of a brother Apollo as he mimed wiping tears from his cheeks. He was the god of theater, so he was probably the god of mimes as well.

Hera squirmed against the thin gold bonds. Tears streamed down her face. Exactly as he'd imagined. Except it had felt better in his head. A lonely child at a lonely forge sort of stuff. In actuality it felt like crap. 

Hera said, "Hephaestus, please. I did my best. I think..."

"Think. Best!" Zeus laughed. "By throwing him over the walls of Olympus when you saw what a pathetic creature you'd whelped after I had my glorious Athena." He grinned. "I should leave you like this. Teach you some respect." He shook his head solemnly with laughing eyes. "To think that your son Hephaestus bound you with chains. The only way it would be funnier," his smile took a wild and feral look, "is if he tied the chains to anvils. That would be so very funny."

That was one answer confirmed at least. How the fall had occurred. Except, no that didn't quite make sense.

"Please, Father!" Ares tried to pry the chains free with his spear point and was in some danger of stabbing their mother. "You must to help mother."

"Have to!" A thunder cloud passed over Zeus' face. Erasing his laughter like a cloud over the face of the sun. "I must to do nothing. I am the king of the gods."

"Of course not, father," soothed Athena. "You are a just and wise ruler."

Hermes darted over to Hephaestus. "Bro to Bro. What do you want? Need? I'm sure we could make a deal. Hera's a bit of a b…" he winked at Ares, "bore, but we can't have the queen of heaven tied to a chair for all eternity. Talk about boring." He did a little dance, eyes on Zeus, who laughed at his son's antics.

Zeus, who might be Hephaestus' father. Mother-Euryonme had heard as much from her daughters an age or so ago. He'd also heard the tale about Hera being his mother and father. That she'd been the one to throw him away.

Hera's bracletted wrists ground against the chains that bound her to the throne. He'd thought that would bring satisfaction. 

Hephaestus had a plan. He still had questions. "I want to take my rightful place on Olympus." Hephaestus had practiced this. He said the words. "As an Olympian god." This was the best way to understand.

"Boy, there's no room for the cast off son of a mad woman." Zeus waved at the twelve feasting benches circling the hearth fire. There were outer rings of seats, but none closer to the fire. "There's no room. Take a back seat. Second or third ring. That's the best offer you'll get." 

This was not the plan. There had been no part in the plan for Zeus finding Hera's pain funny. There had been no part in the plan for her pain feeling unsatisfying.

He opened his mouth to argue, when Aunt Hestia hastily said, "Brother, our nephew can have my seat." She got out of her seat and went the three steps to the fire pit. "I want to be closer to my fire anyway. It's no bother. It's fine. All fine." 

"Excellent," said Hermes rubbing his hands together and then extending them as if warming them by a fire. "What do you think, father? Shall we have Hebe bring us some nectar to celebrate your excellent deal?" He winked at Zeus. "After all, it cost you nothing and made you laugh."

Zeus chuckled. "True. Fine. So be it."

Behind him, Athena relaxed. 

Hephaestus could have what he wanted, and yet he hesitated. 

Aunt Hestia came up to him. As she came closer, he could see that her veils were made of smoke and ash. She smelled faintly of the grease of sacrificial animals. "Please, let your mother go." She placed her hand on his arm. The first Olympian to willingly touch him. Which fine, it may have made him a sucker, but he agreed.

He wheeled himself up to the throne of entrapment. "Out of my way," he told his brother, but the lunk didn't move. "Do you want our mother trapped forever?" 

Ares gripped his spear. "You'd better not hurt her.... More."

Hephaestus nudged him out of the way with his chair and sprang the release on the throne of plans. The golden chains retracted into the filigree.

"Mother!" Ares gathered their mother up and glared at Hephaestus . "That was a shit thing to do." 

Hera opened her mouth as if to say something, and looking down at his twisted legs left him there. 

A great fuck of a start. 

If one of his creations functioned like this, he'd have restart from the basic design.

There was no way to begin again. Instead Hephaestus could feel the eyes of all the gods of Olympus on him. Perfect beings. Judging shitty imperfect him. 

His hammer was in his hand before he could think. He crushed the throne into so much wreckage. 

Zeus said, "Got some temper on you, boy. You should see about that. Go out with your friends. If you had any." He sat down heavily in his throne above the feasting seats. "Hebe, nectar. Why don't I have nectar already?" The gods gathered around Zeus. Laughing. Their backs to Hephaestus .

"You should do something about Ares and the others," said Athena quietly. Her spear was strapped to her back. Her aegis cloak of a thousand scales was pushed back on her shoulders. A fascinating woven design. "It's not good to have an enemy at your back." She leaned down and held his gaze. "It's not peaceful."

"So."

She stood up. "I keep the peace." She turned to join the others. 

"Wait," he said, feeling foolish. Unsettled. Off his careful plans. 

She paused. Waited. Stared coolly.

None of that mattered. "Do you remember me on the day you were born?" A volcanic explosion of a question. A burst of steam so fast he could hardly frame the words.

She looked at him quizzically. Then her expression shifted. A smith, he knew a change in metal. "You were younger." Her eyes narrowed and asked the question that had plagued him all his life. What he could remember of it. "If you were present at my birth then Hera could not have had you in revenge for my birth."

"Exactly," said Hephaestus . "Both can't be true. Do you remember what I looked like? Was I injured?" If the first question had been a sudden venting, this was an eruption.

She shook her head slightly, backing away. "Just Zeus is not a liar."

On cue, Zeus shouted "Athena! Favorite daughter. Don't waste your time with the cripple. We are about to be a... Mused by a story of my triumph in the war of the titans. As we prepare for my festival of Diasia. Festival of Kindly Zeus." 

Athena's expression hardened. "There is nothing to know. Leave the past alone. Keep the peace," hissed Athena, her aegis scales whispering words he couldn't hear. 

She went to stand with her father. Their father. Perhaps. She may have been no sister to him at all.

A question. 

He was still wondering if he should humiliate himself by levering out of his chair onto the bench Hestia had vacated for him when the most beautiful creature in all creation came into the room. All gods were beautiful, but she was beauty. Golden and glowing with an internal light. With every graceful movement her garments flowed like light to the greater illumination of every curve. 

He felt a sudden stab in his chest. A golden arrow dissolved into his skin. A laughing winged youth turned sightless eyes on him. "Relax, smith. Love is the greatest love of all." The little prick fluttered off. 

Hephaestus took one more despairing look at perfection and left Olympus for his smithy in the heart of mount Aetna. The place he'd just left to come to Olympus. 

He laid a hand on his anvil and imagined creating necklaces that would only look cheap if worn by love. Bracelets that would only look like shackles. 

Basically, he was screwed.

He decided it was pointless to focus on what could not be. He set to forging gifts for the other gods.

That at least he was good at. 

He would show the gods that he could be of use.

|-- |-- |--

Ares looked down with a dubious expression on his handsome, if one part short of a fountain, face. "Will the hilt bend back and bite my hand off?" 

"Of course not," snapped Hephaestus . "It's a gift." He was actually quite pleased by the protective hilt of the sword, which he'd shaped to look like serpentine Typhon and would in fact grab at an opponent's blade.

"Your last gift was a trap," said Ares. His large hands curled into fists. "You hurt our mother! I should kill you where you stand." 

Hephaestus did not snap that their mother had thrown him off a mountain for the crime of being imperfect. 

He did not bash his brother on his curly haired head and leave the gift on his unconscious body. He calmed down. In the oil dark sea, a volcano erupted.

Instead he said, "This is a sword that will always strike true. The hilt will protect your hand and capture any sword that comes near it. It will not harm you." He forced from his lips. "It's an apology gift." Although, he felt he had needed no apology. Certainly not to Ares who had a mother's love. 

"Oh," Ares picked up the sword. Balanced it on one finger. Flipped it in the air and caught it by the hilt. Tested the edge on a wall hanging. "This is a good sword." He nodded. "With a sword like this I could kill something impressive." He leaned closer, smiling widely, as if he had never been angry. "Aphrodite and I are screwing, but she's also screwing Hermes and Apollo and… I want her to be mine. With a sword like this… Thanks!" He quickly hugged Hephaestus . Then bounded off. Sword in hand. Apparently, all was forgiven.

His sister Hebe stared at him in confusion when he offered her a new lighter flagon. "A gift? For me?"

"Yes, I'm sure you've received gifts." She was an Olympian god. When he said as much, she blushed and cast her eyes to the ground. "Oh, I'm not an Olympian. I'm just…" she shrugged, "my godhood is innocence. I'm no one. But, thank you." The last squeaked out as she scurried off to fill Apollo's cup. The daughter of Hera and Zeus, a servant to other gods.

Hephaestus had no intention of filling his every hour - since the hours were also daughters of Zeus - with making gifts for all the sons and daughters of Zeus. But his Hera's children. He could start there. Those at least he could be certain were his siblings.

And Hera. He could try again. He owed her no apologies, but he wanted to know why she'd done what she'd done.

He gave Hera a hand loom. She looked at in bug eyed horror, and left the room before he could protest that he could give her a larger loom if she wished. Or not a loom. A spindle. Or some sort of implement for roasting food. Perhaps something to wash clothes or dishes or whatever it was women wanted. That it wasn't a trap.

Zeus laughed. "What did you expect. That woman can hold a grudge for all of eternity. Had no idea when I married her that the littlest thing would set her off." He looked at the box attached to the back of Hephaestus ' chair. "Where's my present?" 

As Hephaestus wheeled closer, Athena raised her hands palm up and at his blank look, mouthed, "Flatter him."

Somewhere more lava flowed into the sea. Somewhere poisonous gas belched from some volcano. He attempted flattery. "Oh, great Sky-Father Zeus. Most powerful of the Olympians. Um… here." He twisted to reach into the box and handed Zeus a quiver that was larger on the inside than out. 

"What is this?" Zeus glared at it. "I don't know what this is and… I'm the most brilliant of the gods. No one smarter. After all, I created wisdom out of my head." He tapped the side of his head.

"Perhaps wise Zeus," said Athena slowly, "it might be a quiver."

Haphaestus was already tired of this conversation. "Yes, it's for your thunderbolts." The craftsmanship on those bolts was very fine. He had visited the smithy of the Hecatoncheires, the hundred handed titans, in Tartarus where they made them. Mother-Thetis and Mother-Euryonme had taken him there as a gift in celebration of the day they had found him. A good memory. Certainly better than this moment now.

"I have a fine container for them here." Zeus patted the elegant barrel stamped with the symbol of the Hecatoncheires.

"Uh…" It had seemed obvious to him when he'd made it. "So you can carry them into battle more easily." 

Zeus' eyes narrowed. "Are you expecting me to go into battle? Do you think you can take me?" He laughed at his own question. "Course not. All my children with Hera are disappointments. Cripple. Idiot. Childbirth for some reason. Innocence. Best child I ever had was the one I had by myself. Entirely by myself." He leaned closer. "Soon as you were born, your mother snatched you and tossed you over the walls of Olympus. Crazy bitch. You can't trust a thing she says." He leaned back in his throne and rapped his cup on the arm. "Hebe! Get your worthless ass over here. I shouldn't even have to ask to have my cup filled." 

Little Hebe, tears in her eyes, filled his cup with nectar. "Sorry, Father." 

"You're always sorry." Zeus waved Hebe away. "Get out of my sight." 

Hephaestus was more than ready to wheel away from Zeus. More than ready to look at a friendly face. 

He had a pair of tongs for Aunt Hestia. He held them out to her. "For your fire."

She accepted them. "It's a lovely gift nephew. Thank you. This is beautiful work. I love the curl of the metal." 

He wheeled his chair by the fire. 

He ruefully noticed that when the moment came she simply reached into the fire to adjust a log when it needed more air. When she saw his look, she picked up the tongs and attempted to move another log, but the fire hissed. She said, "No, sweetie, it's good. Mama loves you. See," She scritched the back of a flame and the fire crackled happily. She gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry. It's a lovely gift but my fire can be temperamental."

"All fire is." They shared a look of common understanding. Uncomplicated and easy. 

Into which he was going to throw complication like oil on a fire. Aunt Hestia was the oldest of the gods. First born. Also last born as he'd heard it. He had no practice at casual conversation. He briefly wished he was Hermes, currently flattering a giggling nymph while one of the Erotes was aiming an arrow. Because Hermes had it easy.

Even now the absence of Aphrodite in the gathering crowd of gods for the feast was painful. 

Hephaestus sighed.

"What is it Hephaestus? Can I help?" Aunt Hestia patted his arm with a sooty hand.

"Am I the son of Zeus?" That came out a good deal more baldly than he'd have wished. 

"Oh, Hephaestus ." Aunt Hestia's eyes gleamed with firelight. "It's better to leave the past where it is." She pulled a brand of her fire onto her lap and set to stroking it. "Now, I've always been curious about the fire in your forge." Her own fire hissed and scratched her hand. "Sh… don't be jealous. Our nephew's fire has a very different purpose."

He found himself telling her about his forge and smithy. The various tools he used to create gifts from the heart of a volcano.

A good conversation. Not the one he wanted, but a good one. Perhaps he should listen to the gods counseling him to accept what he had.

Instead, he sought out Aunt Demeter, who was sitting with her daughter Kore as far from the throne of Zeus as she could and still remain in the room. He said, "Hello, Aunt Demeter. Kore." 

Kore winced away when he spoke and curled into her mother's side.

Aunt Demeter wrapped her arm around Kore and said very flatly. "My daughter is very shy around men."

Kore didn't not appear to be shy. Her entire body was trembling as a metal pole might shake in a strong wind. Her breath had the same sort of strange sighing as a broken bellows. 

He cleared his throat and attempted to speak more softly. "Aunt Demeter, I have observed that you carry the adamantine sickle." 

"Yes." Aunt Demeter's expression did not change. Her tone was as flat as a well hammered plate. His aunt deeply inhaled from an opium pipe. "Yeah."

"I made you a case for carrying it." He brought out a light metal case he had crafted of finely woven gold. "So you do not accidentally cut yourself."

"Not concerned," said his aunt flatly. Another toke. He glanced dubiously at the curved edge of a stone blade sharp enough to slice a thought. 

He carried on. "And this handle. See it can extend shorter or longer as you desire." He held out his hand so she could hand him the sickle hanging by a rope from her woven cestas girdle. She stared at him stonily. 

He suppressed the thought that he would have thought he was asking for the life of her first born. Somewhere in a mountain sharp range a volcano belched poison gas. 

"Here," he handed her the handle. She took it grudgingly and fit it over the stone handle. "Now turn like so." 

She did and actually faintly smiled when she saw it extend. "That is...good. Kore look." The instruction was quiet but firm. 

Kore pulled her head away from her mother's shoulder and gave a little shriek, burying her head again. She mumbled. "It has a dragon on it."

"It's a winged serpent," protested Haphaestus, who had chosen the design knowing the serpent was one of his aunt's avatars. He'd seen her arrive for the festival in a chariot pulled by winged serpents.

"Girl, what has come over you?" said Aunt Demeter sharply. "You've been acting weird since we got here after talking non-stop about getting to know the rest of our family. You love the serpents at home."

"It...it… it's a dragon," whispered Kore. She looked at her father's throne. "A storm. Please, mama. I want to go home." 

Aunt Demeter began whispering fiercely to Kore. 

Haphaestus begged his leave, and escaped.

He had two gifts left to give. He girded himself and told himself that he had nothing to fear as he approached the pool of darkness where his uncle the Inescapable sat in shadows. "Great and powerful Receiver of Many, I have a gift for you."

Golden eyes gleamed out of the shadows. A low deep voice not unlike a heavy bronze bell in a cave said, "I am not Zeus. Flattery is nothing to me. I will not release a nymph you've loved and lost."

"What. No. I'm not…"

"Nor a stripling lad in the first flush of youth. The waste is irrelevant. I accept all. Turn none away, but what I have I keep."

"No, I didn't… not that I have a… no." Hephaestus squared his shoulders. "I have a gift for you. It's a bident." He pulled the forked weapon out of the box and extended the telescoping handle. "See. It will shatter anything you throw it at." Hepaestus looked around for a suitable item to shatter, and found nothing.

He was about to offer to go into the gardens when his uncle said, "I am not Ares. I do not require demonstrations. I know truth when I hear it." The shadows pulled back to reveal his uncle's face. His skin was as leached of color as a bone left in the sun, while his beard and hair were as black as the bottom of a well. "What do you want in exchange? In my experience," he tilted his head, "gifts are transactions. All the metal and gems in creation are mine. I am not averse to an exchange provided," he pulled back white lips over brilliant white teeth, "I know the price and it is fairly agreed to." 

That was clear enough. Hephaestus liked clear. Concise. Plain speaking. "I want to know when I was injured. How. Tell me what know of my early childhood?"

The Grisly God looked at him levely. "I can tell you nothing of any of that."

"Anything. Tell me something," said Hephaestus.

"Very well. My older sister Hera invited me to the naming ceremony to her son with my youngest brother. When I prepared to make the journey, my youngest brother let it be known that my travel was unnecessary. That there was no child. When I came each year to bear the blood of the sacrifice for my festival of Diasia, I did not see you. The year that Athena sprang from my youngest brother's head, if," the Inexorable god's lips pulled back, "I am to believe what a storm god says, is when I was first told by my youngest brother that our sister had thrown you from the walls of Olympus. That you existed at all."

It felt as if the Inescapable god's golden eyes were a bow drill in the Egyptian style. Every word said perfectly calmly. Matter of factually. 

"So I am her child alone. She threw me away."

"Hmm...When we were in the belly of the beast," every syllable felt as if it was cut metal; sharp and bloody, "as Hestia and I held our sisters on our shoulders to keep them out of the acid, it was Hera who would distract us from the pain by singing." The Giver of Good Counsel narrowed his eyes. "When we fought in the war with the Titans, it was my sister Hera who would insist we stop if she spotted a bird with a broken wing or a lost lamb." The Acceptor of All's tone sharpened further still. "That sister would never have thrown a child for… any reason." 

"But Zeus said," said Hephaestus carefully, constructing his thoughts as he went, only to be cut off.

"My youngest brother lies as the breeze changes directions." 

The shadows closed over the Unseen's face.

"What are you saying about my father?" asked Athena her spear firmly placed on the floor.

"Child," said the clear deep bell voice, "I am saying my youngest brother lies." 

Athena visibly appeared to be wondering if she wanted, in her careful way, to confront the Titans Keeper further. 

At that moment, Eris came into the feasting hall. Her eyes were bright with joy. "Everyone. Best thing ever. You have all got to see this. Humiliation. Hilarity. All the things."

Athena's jaw clenched.

The earth deep voice said, "Better go see if it's something that might disturb the peace, child." 

Athena sighed and followed the flow of gods out of the room.

"Nephew, I have nothing more for you," said the Rich One. 

Haphaestus handed the bident into the shadows. The floor didn't shatter so the Lord of the Dead must have taken it.

He followed the stream of gods to the palace of Poseidon. Eris chortled, "I'm not even the one who did it," as they came closer to the sound of shouting. "I was just looking in a window and bam," she swung open the door of a bedroom. There in the wide bed of the god of the sea were Ares and Aphrodite trapped under a net. Naked. Legs still wrapped around each other.

Hephaestus froze just inside the door. If he'd expected anything, it had not been this. He wanted to wheel himself away, but the door was full of goggling and laughing gods. Crowding against him. Jostling. He wished more than anything that he could transform his chair so he could stand and push his way through the crowd. 

As it was he was trapped. 

Nearby, Poseidon was shouting at his wife, Amphitrite. "I told you I wasn't screwing some nymph in our bed."

Amphitrite glared and did not put down the triton she was holding. "I know you. I know your ways of old." 

Poseidon pointed at Ares' ass. "Not me. Not in our bed." 

Ares twisted in the net, "I told you all Aphrodite and I are a couple. Hermes, you can just," he struggled at the net that bound him, "fuck off!"

"When Aphrodite and I couple, we don't get caught," said Hermes. He tried to saw at the net with a dagger, but it only tightened. 

"That's my net," said Amphitrite "and you won't cut it with anything that weak. My mother gave it to me when I had to marry this unfaithful ass for the good of the peace of the sea." 

"Not me," shouted Poseidon. "Not in our bed." 

She reached forward and pinched him. "I am the queen of the sea. Daughter of the titan Nereus and grand-daughter of the titan Oceanus. I should never have been forced to marry you. Give up my birthright. You unfaithful..."

"For the last time," shouted Poseidon.

"Please, it's hurting us," interrupted the voice of the most beautiful being in all creation. 

Above the bed, Aphrodite's children were fluttering around and generally getting in the way. 

Since this hell would not end without him doing something, because even if it was impossible, Aphrodite was in pain, Hephaestus gave in. He muscled his way through the crowd, using his chair as a battering ram with powerful shoves of his arms on the wheels. 

He looked into the eyes of love, coupled as she was with war, and said, "Hold still." He had the sheers that he used for cutting metal. There was no good place to touch her to steady her and he would be damned to Tartarus if he was grabbing his brother's ass. He placed his rough hand on the curve of her rounded hip. Her beautiful perfect hip and carefully slid his sheers under the rope so he wouldn't cut her.

"Don't touch her, she's mine," shouted Ares. He thrashed like a wild animal unthinking of the very sharp sheers close to his lover's flesh.

"Don't you dare cut my net," shouted Amphitrite. 

"Quiet! Hold still!" he shouted in answer. Somewhere a volcano bubbled with his frustration. His sheers sliced through the strands as if they were cobwebs. He continued cutting. The shouting continued until Aphrodite and Ares were freed. 

"Thank you," said Aphrodite. Her eyes shone with an inner light that hurt the wound in Hephaestus' heart. She seemed utterly unconcerned about being utterly naked in front of what seemed like virtually every god on Olympus. But then, she was beauty itself.

"My love," said Ares in a pleading tone.

Which really was too much. Hephaestus tossed the trident he'd made as a gift to Poseiden. "Here. It's a gift from me to you. Whatever I am, I am useful. Now everyone, out of my way or I will go through you." 

He wheeled forward and gods scrambled back. 

"Hephaestus, wait," said the most beautiful voice in all the world.

He did not listen to love. He went faster to get away from the sound of her voice.

|-- |-- |--

Hera shouted, "I know you're seeing that temptress, Semele. You're always sneaking behind my back. Always seeing someone."

"Because I have eyes," shouted Zeus. "You always accusing me of something. I am the most persecuted god in existence. The titans had it easier."

"Then you won't admit that you seek to put some human priestess on my throne." Hera stood and glared at Zeus. 

For the hundredth time, Hephaestus wondered why he worked so hard to to be invited to Olympus, as Hera stormed from the great hall again. 

"Good riddance!" shouted Zeus. He raised his voice until it echoed around the room. "And leave that innocent girl alone!" Several of the younger gods winced. Kore hid her face in Aunt Demeter's black robes. 

Denied his favored chew toy, Zeus looked around the room. It would seem it was Hephaestus' turn. "And you. Look at you. You're no son of mine. Your mother had you out of jealousy when I bore Athena out of my own head."

Hephaestus laid his hand on the hammer on the side of his winged chair. Not to strike. To calm him. Center him. He said, "Since I remember striking the blow that freed Athena from your head that must be a lie." 

He could swear he remembered that. A fragment of a dream. He could swear he remembered holding a hammer and striking a blow against his maybe father's head.

"I am just Zeus. Lawful Zeus. I do not lie," roared Zeus placing a hand on his bucket of bolts. 

At the far side of the hall, Athena was gesturing as if to tell Hephaestus to apologize. He was not going to. She wanted to keep a peace that was no peace.

"You were a baby. You can't remember your mother throwing you off of Olympus in a fit of rage when she saw what a twisted child she'd given birth to." raged Zeus, spittal flying. "No answer for that. Of course not. That's why you're a pathetic excuse for a god. Can't even walk. The only reason I let you stay is as a contrast to my other children. An example for what could happen to them if they cross me."

Hephaestus didn't plan to explode. Volcanoes don't plan to explode and fill the sky with ash. They just do. He swung his hammer into the side of Zeus' throne. Denting it. 

Straight limbed Ares stood up, hand on his spear. "Hephaestus, Father is the king!"

Zeus sneered. "I don't need your defense, idiot. God of war who can't even win a single match against my Athena." Zeus tapped a finger against his head. "Born from my head alone. My wisdom. Hard to say where you came from. For all I know your mother fucked Poseidon to have you. Claimed you were mine, but how should I know."

Ares stood there clenching his spear, tears welling in his eyes. 

Into the silence Hephaestus vented a question as a volcano hisses steam, "Was I crippled from birth or was I injured in the fall? It can't be both. Which is the lie?" 

"Ha. And I thought you were the clever one with your trinkets." Zeus reached out blindly and sure enough trembling Hebe put a fresh cup in his hand. "You can't trust Hera. She trapped me you know. I was married to a beautiful woman. Smart too, but then your mother trapped me. Crazy bitch. Threw you over the side of Olympus just because I mentioned my ex. That's how you fell." He downed his cup.

Hephaestus almost said something else. But he didn't because fair Aphrodite came into the room and every other thing became small. Everything in golden glowing Olympus seemed dim in comparison to radiant Aphrodite.

All he could think of was how she'd been under that net. Naked. Legs wrapped around Ares.

Zeus saw where he was looking. He laughed. His storm rage fading as quickly as it had come. "You think you have a chance with her. Every god in Olympus is panting after her. Your better looking brothers included." He leaned closer and whispered in Hephaestus ' ear. "Not me. I've already had her. Ages ago. She was panting for it. She..."

Hephaestus didn't strike another blow with his hammer. He didn't stay to listen to Zeus. He did what he always did when Aphrodite came into the room. 

He wheeled out of it.

This time, he wanted to get far away. As far as he could. He activated the wings to return to Aetna. To the volcano quietly smoking with the fires of his forge. He didn't go to his forge though. 

He went to where his foster mothers, Mother-Thetis and Mother-Eurynome, were swimming together in the water. He went to the mothers who had taken him in after the fall. Cared for a strange child, who had not been born from the sea. 

Mother-Thetis smiled when she saw him. Her eyes didn't fill with tears when she looked at his legs.

Mother-Euryonme did not chide him. She cooled his temper with swimming.

Hephaestus was no sea god. This was not his element, but outside of his forge, the water was where he felt the most comfortable. Where he was weightless. Lifted up by the sea. Where his legs were not useless. Simply irrelevant to use.

"You left just as I arrived," said the most beautiful voice in creation. "You always leave when I arrive." Aphrodite plucked a white feather out of the air and put it in her chiton. She looked up at her children with an amused smile. "Don't you have errands to run." 

The Erotes giggled and fluttered off in all directions. Leaving their mother to sit on the rocks by the cove. She swished her right foot in the water and splashed him playfully. Her foot was naked. Bare.

He flushed hot even in the cool of the water. Like lava meeting the sea. Feeling like the idiot lump his father called him. If Zeus was his father. Hephaestus was wet and covered in sea salt. Hair in all directions. His chiton fluttering on his chair. This was not how he had wanted Aphrodite to see him. He wanted to be like Ares when she saw him. Straight limbed. Able to walk out of the waves.

Instead, he gritted his teeth and crawled up the rocks. His legs might be twisted, but his arms were true. He heaved himself into his chair still wet. Wrapped his chiton around his body, all while Aphrodite kept splashing her foot in the water. 

Of course, Apollo was up in the sky watching all this. Artemis too. Maybe his mother from a cloud. Certainly his foster mothers, who were greeting Aphrodite as if there was nothing wrong with his complete humiliation. 

Mother-Thetis said, "Aphrodite, it's been a long time."

"It has," said Aphrodite. "An age or so." She laughed and the sound lifted him up and crushed him down. He was certain she was laughing at him.

Mother-Eurynome said, "You should come back to the sea. It's much better than that cold Olympus. Hephaestus too. You'd be happy here. Maybe the two of you could even..."

"Mother-Eurynome, please!" said Hephaestus. Then he gave up. He wheeled his chair to his forge. If the sea lifted him up, the forge gave him purpose. Use. That's what he needed. To be of use. 

He plucked his hammer from its spot and set to hammering a hapless piece of metal. Not into any shape. Not to any form. He just needed to hammer something. 

"What are you making?" asked the sweetest voice in creation.

"Nothing," he growled at her. Looking determinedly at the forge. "Is there something you want?" He wheeled around and forced himself to look at her. "Do you want me to make something for you? That's the only reason the gods come here!" Vented poisonous steam as volcanos are wont to do even when they don't want to.

She smiled and looked around the room. Didn't answer. Picked up a delicate metal bird of gears and wires. She slid a golden finger down the fragile fabricated feathers. "It's beautiful."

"It sings," he ground out. He came over and plucked it out of her hands. Touched the mechanism that set the little bird to chirping. He handed it back to her. "There. You can have it. Now go." He didn't want her to leave at all. Now that she'd touched the bird, no matter the hours he'd spent making it, he wouldn't be able to stand seeing it there. Seeing it and not her. 

"Thank you. I love it." She kissed his cheek, which was a sort of torture. 

He waited. Expecting her to leave, but she didn't. She drifted from fabricated item to item. He gave the results of his labor away. She gained a sharp knife that would always find its mark. A vambrace. A bow. A metal dog that barked at the hissing metal cat. A rose that opened and closed. A pile of metal goods that each earned him a kiss. Torture.

Until Aphrodite was laughing as the metal cat jumped out of the pile and took refuge on a high shelf. "Hephaestus, I didn't come here for you to give me every single thing that I touch. Although, it does give me ideas." 

"Why did you come here?" he asked. Helpless. Her eyes were incredibly green. Possibly blue. Maybe grey. Somewhat golden. They kept changing. He wondered if it would be possible to craft a necklace that could capture all those colors. But no. It would only look cheap compared to her beauty.

She walked up to him. Placed both hands on the arms of his chair. Pressed a kiss not to his cheek, but to his lips. 

Her mouth was sweet and salty, and he savored that kiss until he couldn't stand it anymore and pulled away. 

She quirked a smile and laid a perfect hand on his still salty, sweaty chest. "Is this mine now? I touched it." 

He nodded a confirmation. Unable to speak over the pounding of his heart. This must be a trick. 

"Then I will care for what is mine." She unpinned his chiton, letting the cloth pool in his lap. From somewhere, she was a god after all, there were bowls of water and olive oil. Fine linen. She cleaned his chest of salt and sea. Leaving him shaking. When she was done, she pressed her hand lower over his belly, quivering with tension. "Is this mine?" 

He nodded again. Swallowing. Uncertain just what humiliation might be around the corner. But unable to do anything but agree.

"Then I will take care of what is mine." She performed the same cleansing task on his belly. When she was done, she laid both palms on his thighs. "Are these mine?"

"Why would you want them?" burst out of him. "They're broken. Twisted. Imperfect."

"Oh, my love." She knelt down in front of him, the sea silk making a pool around her. "You gods mistake what beauty means. What it looks like. How to even see it. See that my children are born blind and don't understand what that means." She unlaced her cestus girdle. Laid it to one side. Unpinned her chiton. Until the sea silk was a waterfall on the table and she was completely naked. "Am I beautiful?"

"Of course you are. You're the goddess of beauty." The words were bitter, but then how could they not be. He wondered if his father was lurking about somewhere. Laughing at him.

A thought blown away by Aphrodite's next words. "I'm not a god."

Hephaestus swallowed. He had heard Father laughing about old Ouranos once. If Zeus was his father. 

Aphrodite sighed. Her perfect breasts rising and falling with her sigh. "The gods don't see me as I am. Even naked and coupling with me, and still the gods don't see me."

He almost said, "You terrify me," but she had lifted his right foot. Thin from disuse. "Is this mine?"

"Fine. Sure." Hephaestus wasn't even sure what he felt just then. Perhaps that the mechanical bird on the table was trying to free itself from his chest. 

She kissed his foot and after claiming his twisted right leg up to the thigh with questions and kisses, went on to claim his gnarled left leg. 

She paused and stood up.

He said bitterly, "No point in claiming the last bit I suppose." 

Aphrodite smiled and placed her hand over his mouth. "You gave me your lips. Your throat. The method with which you push air in and out. Since I own these things, I won't allow you to say words like that. But first," she picked up the cloth, "I must care for what is mine." She cleaned his legs tenderly of salt and then of oil. Until he could hardly stand it. Certainly his desire was making itself obvious beneath his chiton. 

She lifted even that barrier away and laid her hand on his prick. "Is this mine?"

Heart pounding. Almost numb with feeling, Hephaestus said, "If you want it."

Aphrodite smiled widely. Wildly. "I'm love. I want everything. Now I'll care for what's mine." She tenderly cleaned that part of him too. When she was done, she sweetly kissed him there up to the point of eruption and with a squeeze had him subsiding from the edge. She said, "What do you see when you look at me?"

"You're terrifying." The words escaped. Like a bird from a branch.

She smiled. "Let's see what happens when you stop leaving the room as soon as love come into it." 

Then the force of nature, who was not a god, laid further claim to each part he'd given her. With hands and lips. Each moment, he expected her to laugh at him. To mock him as their exploration moved from his chair to the bed he kept near the forge. For this all to be a trick.

Even as she placed his work roughened hands on her breasts. Her skin soft and smooth. Even when she groaned as she guided his calloused thumbs over the aureals of her breasts. Even as she guided his prick into the tight sheath of her body. Even as she said, "Harder. I bend. I won't break." 

Even as she appeared to experience release.

He wanted to create a device that would tell him if her desire was real. He wanted it almost more than his own release, which came in a prolonged explosion. Crashing down into quiet entanglement on the narrow bed. Lava entangled with the sea.

It was only after all of this, as they lay on that bed, idly stroking her shoulder, that Hephaestus had the thought that Aphrodite was older than the gods. Was the goddess of desire. If anyone knew his truth, it should be her. Like a worm, this thought twisted inside him. He had to ask. "Is Zeus my father?" He looked away from her. "Sometimes he says yes. Others no. Hera won't speak to me."

She laughed, "Any other god would ask if I loved them. Demand it as a right. Especially after we made love."

He felt something twist inside him. The idea that such a perfect being could love him. As far from possible as a cloud is far from Tartarus. He turned away from the sight of her. Painfully beautiful as she was. He told the wall, "We screwed." It had felt like worship.

Aphrodite kissed his neck below the ear. "You still don't know how to see beauty. How to understand love." She moved against him, warm and welcoming. "I love the way your breath catches when I do that. The way you kiss as you are crafting desire carefully. Not simply assuming my delight because you are delighted." She lightly kissed the curve of his ear. "And so I love you." 

"You can't possibly." He told the wall.

"Hm…" was her only reply before she set to work at wringing further worship out of him. 

When they were done, he levered himself back into his chair. He went to his work space and sketched plans for something complicated looking, but would actually do nothing, because his mind could hardly compass thinking of anything but her. Because he had to do something lest he drown. 

She laughed. Light and happy. She tapped her finger on the page. "I'll leave you to your very important work. But," she brushed her hand on the back of his neck, "when you come back to Olympus, eldest son of Zeus and Hera, don't leave the room when I come into it, because love loves you."

She was gone before he processed quite what she'd said. 

He asked the still air of his workroom, "Did you mean it?"

The air did not answer.

On the anvil there was something silvery that had not been there before. He wheeled his way over to it. It was a hand mirror filigreed with small clam shells and waves. He knew the work of every silversmith. Every smith truth be told. As fine as the mirror was, as clear a reflection as it gave, he should have recognized the work, but he didn't. 

He hesitantly turned the mirror towards himself. It was a mirror. It showed his face, swarthy. Streaked in places with ash. A bruise suckled on his neck from a lover's lips. Hair recently tugged by a lover's hand. 

He was about to turn it face down on the anvil when sudden tears, half from weariness and half from anger welled up. Splashed the silver, which shivered and shifted. 

He saw himself, but younger. Falling. Falling. A flock of cuckoos fluttered around him. Slowing his fall. Struggling to pull him from the land that he was hurtling towards and out over the sea.

He fell into that sea with a great splash. He was under the waves for long moments before red lava steaming into black lifted him out of the water. Forming a mountain. His volcano. All around him red-black lava flowed into the sea. As he watched, an anvil fell and struck the stone. His forge. His anvil. The very anvil in front of him that was embedded in his stone.

As he watched, Mother-Thetis came into his workroom to be. Her mouth moved, but he couldn't hear what she'd said. Knowing her, she was asking if he was well. If he needed help. He saw her call out, and Mother-Euryonme came inside. The two of them took him to their home beneath the sea. The home of his first memory. They cared for him. Straightened his legs as well they could.

Images of tender care gave way to lessons in dogged swimming. The day Mother-Euryonme took him back to his smithy in the mountain. The first item he crafted from the forge of his own fire. The first version of his chair. He saw glimpses of his life until he crafted the golden throne for his mother out of his own longing.

The images faded and all he saw was his own face again.

As try as he might, the mirror would not show him anything more. 

The only way he'd be able to find out more about the mirror was to find Aphrodite.

He put it face down on the anvil and wheeled back to the table and stared at a gibberish drawing of a device that would do nothing.

<3<3<3

The sons of Zeus quarreled over Aphrodite. It was what they did. She walked into the room and they set to shoving at each other. Shouting. Like bucks fighting each other while the doe ate grass. 

Except the one son she wanted to quarrel over her. 

At least Hephaestus did as she asked, and did not leave the room. That was progress. 

She hadn't intended to give him her mirror. It was one of her oldest possessions. As powerful as the cestas belt and sea silk. It would give him answers if he looked. Saw beyond just that he had his father's sky-blue eyes.

Apollo shouted at Hermes that Aphrodite didn't want a plate of stuffed figs. She didn't, not that he'd asked. Hermes darted past him to lay the figs in front of her with a ridiculous flourish. Which Ares sent flying when he plonked a dragon's head on the table. Why he thought she wanted such a thing, she couldn't have said. He did like to give them and she did want him to be happy.

Figs and rice and dragon's decapitated smile went flying in various directions. 

"Ares, you idiot," shouted Zeus, which did have her heart twisting in pity. She did love Ares. As she loved Apollo and Hermes and even Zeus. She loved everyone that she'd coupled with in an act of love and desire. Born children with. Her Erotes.

Love was never wasted. Even love with those who weren't quite what she wanted. Who were in fact the sort to feed her worst impulses. 

Provided she looked in the mirror and learned. 

She wondered what Hephaestus would learn. He was staring at his mother as Hera went to Ares' defense. A different sort of twist to Aphrodite's heart as his face laid his feelings bare. Since he had come to Olympus, Hera had never jumped to his defense in the face of Zeus' storms. 

But then, Hera with her eternal bridal veils had good reason not to. She was so different from the sweet young woman that she'd been.

Aphrodite caught Hephaestus glancing at her. She smiled at him. Arched one eyebrow to see if it would bring him closer.

Hephaestus flushed bright red and looked away. Turned to Hestia and started talking, which made Aphrodite laugh. Feeling generous, she twirled her dove's feather between her fingers and with a puff of breath set it to floating. 

Naturally, this set the sons of Zeus to fighting even more. Ares shouting the loudest as he repossessed the dragon's head from the floor and attempted to give it to her again. 

A thunderbolt exploded on the floor 

Hera went grey and gripped the arms of her throne, staring straight ahead. Poor Hebe shrieked and dropped the flagon of nectar, which set Artemis' hounds to scrambling to lick it up. Hestia huddled close to her fire. Athena put down her scroll and rushed over to her father's side, shield and spear in hand. 

Zeus shouted, "That's the end of it!" Zeus had another thunderbolt in hand. "No more. Aphrodite will marry this very day and there will be an end to this fighting. Only the strongest and most powerful could be her husband. I will marry..."

"I will not be set aside!" said Hera jumping to her feet. Brave woman. Desperate perhaps. She laid both hands on the wrist that held the thunderbolt.

"Of course he's not setting you aside," said Athena soothingly. Aphrodite watched admiringly as she managed to disentangle Hera's grip before Zeus flung her back all while holding a shield and spear. "You are the Queen of Heaven." Athena glanced at her father. "Wise Zeus is far too brilliant to set aside such a love match. He is far too clever to destabilize the just order of Olympus over which he is king."

A little of the storms faded from Zeus' eyes. Leaving his expression slightly blank. Having blown out one idea, another had not yet blown in.

Into that gap, Ares said, "Father, please, you must mean me. I am the strongest. And love and war. It's a natural balance."

"Ha," said Apollo. "They have nothing to do with each other. While I am the god of the sun. Poetry. Music. A natural compliment for love."

"If love was about soppy children," said Hermes with a shove. "As the god of thieves and merchants. I know all about give and take. I'm a perfect match for love." 

"Father," said Athena slowly, "Our uncle the Lord of Many is somewhat powerful. Unmarried." Not currently in the room.

"Ha. The eunuch," said Zeus. "You know why he has no sons you know." He put down the thunderbolt and flopped his little finger around. Which from Athena's expression had been her plan all along.

Aphrodite stood up. "Do I have a say?" She knew what he'd say, but she wanted him to say it.

"No!" said Zeus. His lips twisting. Still it would seem bruised that she'd been the one to move on. For siding with Hera during her too brief attempt at bliss. 

Into the space of his refusal, Hephaestus sighed and turned his chair towards the door.

"Where are you going, legless?" said Zeus with a laugh that might as well have had a hooked fringe of barbs for cruelty.

Hephaestus turned his chair around. Touched a control on the side that had the chair shifting until he was standing. A wheel by each leg and a sturdy frame holding him up. "Since this discussion has nothing to do with me, I thought I'd leave you to it."

"Nothing to do with you." Zeus smiled. He stepped down from the throne. "Nothing to do with you. Why… it has everything to do with you." He walked up to Hephaestus, only to find his son was the taller. He slapped a heavy hand on Hephaestus' shoulder. Enough to make the metal of his standing chair creak, but Hephaestus did not fall. "You're getting married today." Zeus grinned. "It's perfect. A cripple even their mother doesn't love and love herself." 

Aphrodite smiled and did not turn into a dove. Call for her children on their perches to defend her. She had so very many of them, but then, she'd had the gift of a child from all her lovers, and she'd had so very many lovers.

Athena wrapped her shield arm around her spear and rubbed her eyes. "Father, I am not quite certain that this is quite the right…"

"Nonsense. It's my idea so it's perfect. Time my oldest boy got shackled in marriage anyway. Make a man of him. If that's possible." He strode back to the throne dais, "Hera, don't sit there like the lump that you are. Bridal clothes for the bride. That stupid veil you're always wearing." With a hard hand he ripped the veil off Hera's head. 

She gasped and fluttered her hands by her neck. As if there were still bruises still there to see. Aphrodite looked with pity at the bracelets she wore every day. Love had not put them there.

Ares said pleadingly, "Mother, can't you do anything to stop this?"

"No, because she's worthless," said Zeus. Which had him snarling off in a different tangent. Her and Hephaestus' wedding. 

Not entirely as she'd imagined. Aphrodite was not a planner like Athena. And yet, here she was exactly as she wished to be. Married to the son of Zeus who did not chase or fight over her.

Her heart did twist when as they went to Hephaestus' room after the hasty ceremony and he said, "I know I'm not what you would have wanted."

The best answer appeared to be to make love to him while making use of his delightful standing chair. 

Aphrodite could be patient.

|-- |-- |--

The very first thing Zeus said to Hephaestus the day after his wedding was, "Well, boy, were you able to get it up or couldn't even the goddess of love fix you?" Zeus waved his little finger. 

Since Hephaestus had done nothing but make love all the night through and longed for nothing but hot nectar to clear the clouds in his mind, he did not explode in anger. Instead, he looked at Zeus' little finger and said, "If you would like, I could make a device that will keep your hand steady."

Zeus glared, "My hand is perfectly steady. It's your prick that has the problem."

"There are device for that too," said Hephaestus. "The design is fairly simple, but…" he trailed off wondering if he were to make an entire series of such things what Aphrodite's reaction might be when she came to his forge. He was beginning to think she'd be delighted.

Over by the hearth fire, Aunt Hestia laughed, "My nephew is out of sorts this morning. Never mind him." 

This was no moment for resentment or angry words. He levered his chair so he could use it to sit on his Olympian seat.

His stared into the fire. Watched Aunt Hestia play with it contemplatively. His mind ever cycling back to the night before. In a philosophical state of mind, he asked Aunt Hestia if when a screw was placed in a plank if that wasn't in fact the screw and the board making eternal and binding love. Remembering who he was talking to, he added, "As you invented building and houses." 

She brushed back a strand of her hair, adding a streak of soot and grease. "What a lovely way to think of a home."

"Unless the screw is bent and…" said Zeus with his booming voice, "can't screw the board and… you have a hammer and anvil problem. After all, where is Aphrodite? Not by your side. And she never will be."

"I am here," said the radiant voice of the woman he adored. She kissed his cheek and handed him the silver mirror. "You left this in our room." 

"I can see why," said Zeus. "Why would he want to look at himself." He made an overly exaggerated shudder. He sneered at them. 

Aphrodite seemed unconcerned. She asked softly, "Have you looked in the mirror?"

"It only shows me what I already know."

At her smile, he sighed and turned it over. Looked at it. Certain the other gods were laughing at him. At first he only saw his own face, but then the surface rippled once again.

He saw Zeus and Hera sitting together peacefully in this very hall. Something he'd never seen. It was emptier. There were no seats for Apollo and Artemis. No seat for Ares. None for Athena. Hestia was in her Olympian chair. Petting her hearth fire. A titan sat at her feet talking to her. Her eyes were alight and shining. 

"Who is that?" He hadn't meant to ask.

"Prometheus." Aphrodite laid her finger on the mirror. Touching the faces of Hestia and Prometheus. "Before he gave fire to humanity." 

Something twinged in Hephaestus ' chest. 

"I'd talk about Prom-me-theo on the down low," said Hermes. He jerked his head at Zeus. "Sets dad off something bad." He leaned closer. "Hey, Aphrodite. How's married life treating you? Ready for some trade?"

She laughed. "We need sustenance." Hermes followed Aphrodite as she went to the banquet table. 

While he'd looked away, the scene had changed. Hera was visibly pregnant. Zeus sat with her. Smiling. Laughing. Soon there was a small bundle in Hera's lap. The bundle became a small child. Impossible to see if both legs were true or crooked. He sat next to Hera, close to her skirts. Huddled away from Zeus on the far side of Hera in fact.

Then the child was gone. Zeus was saying something to an assembly of gods. Poseidon. Amphitrite. Demeter. 

Prometheus disappeared. Hestia sat still and stone eyed on her Olympian bench.

Hera was shouting at Zeus. Words on the other side of the mirror. Zeus was rubbing his head as if in pain. In the middle of her unhearable words, Zeus grabbed Hera and dragged her off the throne. 

The images faded from the mirror once more. He told the mirror. "He is my father." He looked at where Zeus was still tumbling a thunderbolt over and over in his hands. Glaring at Hephaestus as if he knew what Hephaestus had seen. "What did you do?" Hephaestus asked the mirror.

It only reflected his own face back.

"Be careful," said Athena as she came to the fire and casually warmed her hands. Her grey eyes darted over the scorch mark that still scarred the floor. "Father guards his power jealously."

He hastily put away the mirror. "I have a gift for you. A sword like the one I made Ares." He considered what he'd said. "A better one." 

She shook her head. "Father armed me. I was born with this armor." She moved so her body was shifted away from Zeus. "Your marriage to Aphrodite has given you a powerful ally. Love has amassed quite the army of little birds." She glanced at up where the children of Aphrodite clustered near the ceiling. 

"So," said Hephaestus . He could hardly tell his new step-children apart. Maybe Eros, but other than that, no.

"Poseidon's marriage to Amphitrite gave him the sea." She looked again at the scorch mark, "If you are Father's eldest son. It's best that he not see you as a threat. Perhaps, you could flatter him. Give him more of those," she flicked her eyes down to his chair, "gifts you have to give. Peaceful ones. Perhaps a divine scepter. A crown. The more gold and glitter the better." 

Hephaestus looked down at his legs still stuck on what she'd said before. "He can't be afraid I'll try to displace him." His sleep addled mind surfaced a thought. He blurted it as a volcano vents steam, "What do you want?"

Her brows furrowed. Her fingers flexed around her spear. Her lips thinned. She looked at his mother on her throne, fussing over Ares. She said, "I do not remember much of the day I was born. But… I want peace." She shook her head and walked away with quick sharp steps to stand by Zeus. Her pose defensive. Protective. It was clear where she stood.

In all honesty, Hephaestus couldn't feel very concerned as tired as he was. With as many revelations as he had tumbling in his head.

Into the tumult, Aphrodite returned followed by Hermes laden with a tray. She said, "Hermes here offered to bring us food."

"What? I thought I was…ah," Hermes grinned, "Nice trick."

"You offered to carry the tray," said Aphrodite with a wide smile. 

"Hmm…" said Hephaestus, as he took the tray from Hermes and balanced it on the arms of his chair. Leaving plenty of space for Aphrodite to perch as well.

"You're a lucky bastard," said Hermes slapping Hephaestus on the back,

"I am not the bastard here." Hephaestus held out a grape that Aphrodite took from his hand.

"You're only lucky until she strays." Hermes darted off on light feet. As if expecting a blow. Hephaestus shrugged. He thought it was somewhat inevitable that love would stray. But he was beginning to form a plan to be of such use that she would feel compelled to return to him. 

She laughed. "You're scheming."

"Planning on what I want to build." He smiled up at her hopefully. Which earned him a kiss and a sugared date.

He ate quietly. Unable to contain his smile as Aphrodite divided her time between eating and swift kisses. 

Until the room shook with another explosion. This time the thunderbolt struck almost at Hephaestus' feet. Hestia scrambled into her fire. Wrapping her arms around it protectively. Zeus glared at him. Another thunderbolt in hand. 

Hephaestus shouted, "Why did you do that?"

"You are a pathetic weakling. I can't believe a son of… you have a hammer and anvil problem," said Zeus.

"Heh, hammer and anvil problem," chuckled Hermes weakly. "Good one, Father."

Behind Zeus, Athena held her spear at the ready. Ares was half standing. The sword Hephaestus had made in one hand, a consolation turkey leg in the other. 

Above them all, the Erotes fluttered around. Golden bows drawn.

Hephaestus was not a god of war. He was not a god of love. He was a god who made things. Occasionally vented in rage. 

He needed to understand. 

He wheeled out of the banquet hall. Out of the palace of Zeus. Up the golden street past the windowless palace of the Lord of Many. The palace of Poseidon. Past a smaller building tucked past them, simple and open in design. Inside, flames danced in a hearth fire. 

Hephaestus hesitated there, drawn to the flames, but that would give him no answers. They climbed past the buildings to the peak where clouds clustered. 

He felt something inside him ease. He was well used to clouded mountaintops. "Love, what are you following?" asked Aphrodite. "What did the mirror show you?"

"I'm a son of Zeus," he said, the words carried away by the whispering wind.

"I told you that." She knelt by his chair. Her light silk whipped around in the harsh wind. She didn't seem to notice the cold.

He pointed to a cloud with a small building on it. "I think we need to go up there." 

"Then it's fortunate your chair has wings." 

"I don't think it can carry two." He cursed himself for not designing it to carry a heavier load.

She winked at him. "Not a problem." She turned into a dove and flew on swift wings to the cloud. Followed by a flock of her children. 

He followed them. He struggled more in the wind than they did. When he landed with a thud, and said as much, Eros said, "Love doesn't always have it easy. We've learned to fly in rough winds."

"True enough," said Aphrodite. "More's the pity. Now love, what are you looking for?"

"My truth," said Hephaestus . He came to a small cottage. It was hung all over with stars. Clouds. Inside he found an old cradle. Children's toys. Small objects that he recognized as his own work. If cruder. Less skilled than what he'd make now. "What is this place?"

"Your mother's home before her marriage, and then your nursery. There's so much love here." Aphrodite walked around the room. It seemed to him that where once her presence had made everything seem small and ugly, now her light seemed to remake this lonely dusty place seem beautiful.

He picked up the mirror, but couldn't look. "I'm here, love." Aphrodite slid onto his chair. Into his lap. Wrapped herself around him. "I am here."

He nodded and looked into the mirror. He saw Hera bring in a rescued cuckoo bird. Then it was not a bird. He had to look away at what happened. At what his father did to be a father, which had little to do with love.

He saw his mother pregnant. Her expression serious and determined as she set the cottage to rights. The same expression when she returned with a baby. Helped him to stumblingly toddle on a twisted right leg. Crafting a toy hammer for him, which gave way to larger items as he grew larger. A small cane. Then crutches he used to swing about the room. His injuries had been much slighter then. A twisted right leg. Nothing more.

Something startled his younger self into pushing himself up. Abandoning his toys. Levering himself out the door.

As the mirror faded, he went outside. This hadn't ended here. 

A new image flickered to life. His own childish self crafting small objects. The ones around him now. An outdoor hearth with anvils of varying sizes. For a long time, it was simply that. 

Then a period of emptiness. Just the cottage and the billowing clouds. 

Then Zeus came into view. Hard to call him father given what Hephaestus had seen. He dragged Hera behind him. Fastened the anvils to metal bands on Hera's wrists and anklets. Hung her from the clouds as she dangled screaming. Her veils whipping in the wind.

He saw himself. Small. So very small in comparison to Zeus. Standing in between them. Zeus' back was too him, but his younger self was shouting. Holding up his hammer. So much smaller than the one Hephaestus had now. 

Zeus struck his younger self, which sent him crumpling. Struck Hera setting her spinning. Young Hephaestus pulled a familiar set of sheers from the smithy. He snipped one chain and an anvil fell. Darting out of Zeus' way on clumsy feet. No, not clumsy. Love was holding him. He could stop tearing at his own work. His own self. His past for all he could not remember it. His younger self was quite deft on his crutches. Four legged almost. 

Hera twisted, kicking at Zeus with her free leg. Giving his younger self space to free her other leg. Her left arm. Three anvils gone. Only one remaining. His younger self tried to duck Zeus again. He tried. Was struck down again.

Got up. Again. Picked up his hammer and struck Zeus on the head. There was a brilliant light. Athena stood there in all her armored glory.

"She really was born from his head. She has no mother." Hephaestus had not been sure if he believed anything Zeus said.

"That is what Zeus says," whispered Aphrodite kissing his forehead.

Zeus turned away from Athena who was looking around with vague unfocused eyes. 

He flung a thunderbolt at his younger self. Sending him tumbling from the cloud. Another bolt, struck the chain binding the anvil to Hera's right hand. Zeus threw Hera to his feet. His mouth moving in words Hephaestus could not hear. She nodded. Tears streaming down her face, she said something. Then a flock of cuckoos flew from Hera's hands. 

The same birds that had tempered his fall. His mother had done her best it would seem. Not very good. But her best.

Hera left first, her face in her hands, followed by Zeus and Athena. 

The image faded into his reflection once again. 

Hephaestus felt sickened. Tired. Emotionally wrung out.

"Shh… it's okay," said Aphrodite. "My Erotes, take us some place better than this." He found himself and Aphrodite whisked away to his own island. Not a cloud to be seen. Himself set down in his own chair. "Shhh… tell me what you need."

"To rest, I think." 

Aphrodite curled into his chair and held him while he came together after all he had learned. 

<3<3<3

They had been gone from Olympus for three days and three nights, no love making but holding Hephaestus in her arms or letting him be, when Athena came to find Aphrodite at the seashore. Athena said, "Sky-Father Zeus is wondering after you. Both of you left very abruptly."

Aphrodite looked at Athena, who had Metis' eyes. Her nose. Her quiet way of standing. More importantly her aegis was woven in Metis' design. Metis who had invented weaving before her daughter perfected it. 

Aphrodite said, "I am newly wed. When Hephaestus and I are ready for company, we'll return to Olympus." 

"What are you planning?" asked clever Athena.

"Me," said Aphrodite with a puzzled smile. "I plan nothing. I only love." 

There seemed to be some message in this. Athena nodded and said, "I will let Father know." 

Aphrodite went back to swimming. Floating on the waves. That night she told Hephaestus of his sister's visit. Seeing his expression she reminded him of what he knew. "You don't have to go back there." 

He looked down at his thin legs. "I can't defeat him. If I fight him I'll... I can't do anything about my… father."

"Love," she said, love glowing in her heart as bright as any flame in his forge, "look at what you've already done." She smiled. "Think of how volcanoes make islands. Slowly. Patiently. Where fire meets the sea." 

|-- |-- |--

In the seventh month of their honeymoon, Hephaestus in a sudden impulse sent Eros with the mirror as a gift for Athena. There was nothing more he could learn from it. In fact, the sight of it in his workroom made it hard for him to work, and he needed to work. He needed to.

As soon as he had done it, he almost called Eros back. He apologized to Aphrodite. "I should have asked you," but she only laughed at him.

"Love, I gave it to you as a gift. Now we'll see what comes of that gift. If wisdom chooses to accept an unpeaceful peace, or look into the mirror and learn from it." 

He kissed her cheek. A peck. A promise. "Sometimes in wisdom, love is wise."

On that, they kept building their life together. Not entirely easy. That was the year that Aunt Demeter brought the first winter into the world. But it may as well have been spring for their love. For the heat of the forge.

Out of that forging, Aphrodite grew pregnant with their first child. 

Anteroes the Erotes of requited love. 

|-- <3 |-- <3 |-- <3

**Author's Note:**

> https://books.google.com/books?id=jhHNCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=rhea+forbid+zeus+from+marrying&source=bl&ots=WvDLpOh87X&sig=ACfU3U2l8fMTf85Fn8LufrwGqtUw2WSbbw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiYn56jgsfmAhVDs54KHeRLDfEQ6AEwCnoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=rhea%20forbid%20zeus%20from%20marrying&f=false
> 
> https://www.infoplease.com/language-arts/mythology/classical-mythology-master-universe
> 
> Amphitrite  
> https://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Amphitrite.html  
> Aphrodite's children  
> https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AphroditeFamily.html#Divine  
> https://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Erotes.html  
> Athena  
> https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Athena.html  
> Athena's Aegis  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis  
> Diasia  
> http://baringtheaegis.blogspot.com/2013/03/celebrating-diasia.html  
> Eirinyes  
> https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Erinyes.html  
> Gigantes  
> https://www.theoi.com/Gigante/Gigantes.html  
> Hecatoncheires  
> https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Hecatoncheires/hecatoncheires.html  
> Hephaestus  
> http://dante.udallas.edu/hutchison/Mythology/Gods/hephaestus.htm  
> Hera's children  
> https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HeraMyths.html#Children  
> Meliai  
> https://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NymphaiMeliai.html  
> Typhon  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhon  
> Zeus' Children  
> https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/ZeusFamily.html#Divine


End file.
